







ft"- ^o< • 






<£°* 







" « * 




^°^ 







**o 
























V 




^ 







rtr * 







%, "*>liP/ <>* ^o *« **/ ft * ^ V 







*°. 




'bK 




^o 1 





























^? °?^ • ^ii^* aV ♦ 




ORATION 



PRONOUNCED 



JULY % 1814, 

AT THE REQUEST OF THE SELECTMEN OP THE TOWN OP 

BOSTON, 
IN COMMEMORATION 



ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 



BENJAMDTWHITWELL, Esq. 



°f lV«.ui..«rt.O V 



Washing 



BOSTON : 

PUBLISHED BY CHARLES CALLENDER 

2*0. 11, MARLBORO' STREET. 
1814. 



VOTE OF THE TOWN. 



AT a meeting of the freeholders and other inhabitants of the 
town of Boston, assembled at Fanenil-Hall, on Monday the 4th day of 
July, A. D. 1814, 9 o'clock, A. M. and then adjourned to the Old 
South Church — Voted, — That the Selectmen be, and hereby are ap- 
pointed a committee to wait on Benjamin Whitwell, Esq. in the 
name of the town, and thank him for the elegant and spirited Ora- 
tion this day delivered by him at the request of the town, upon 
the Anniversary of American Independence, in which were consider- 
ed the feelings, manners and principles, which produced the great 
national event, and the important and happy effects, general and do- 
mestic, which have already, or will forever, flow from that auspici- 
ous epoch ; and to request of him a copy for the press. 

Attest, THOMAS CLARK, Towi-Clerk. 



ORATION, 



1 he American Revolution was an event which 
not only affected the contending parties, but involved 
in its consequences the destiny of the world. . The 
feelings, manners and principles which led to it 
were derived in legitimate succession from brave, pi- 
ous and enlightened ancestors. As family resem- 
blance is peculiar to different nations in the lines of 
the countenance, so it is accurately marked in the 
features of character. The original character of a 
nation, unbiassed by the pressure of tyranny, and 
unalloyed by foreign mixture, will be visible from its 
birth through maturity to its decline. 

It was the first principle of our ancestors to fear 
God and serve their country ; brave and free, they 
knew no other fear, they yielded no other service. 
They understood the nature of civil and religious 
rights, as well those they retained, as those they had 
yielded ; and when persecuted by their sovereign 
for religious opinions, they never forgot their allegK 
ance, while they rigidly asserted their personal privi- 



6 

leges — their ardent piety elevated their views beyond 
the joys and sorrows of life, and encouraged them to 
encounter the perils incident to a new settlement in 
the American wilderness. Such principles and feel- 
ings formed the manners of our ancestors, and these 
they bequeathed to posterity. By these were a hardy 
race of yeomanry readily converted into soldiers, at 
the period when the connection between the mother 
country and her colonies was dissolved ; the child as- 
serted the rights of maturity, and the parent after a 
struggle consented to acknowledge the claim. 

A view of the "consequences which have flown 
from the American Revolution" will naturally involve 
the consideration " of the manners, feelings and prin- 
ciples which led to it." Being an event which has af- 
fected foreign nations not only in their internal policy 
but in their intercourse with other states. Anion «• 
the most important consequences to this country are 
those which have resulted from its relations with 
France. 

For the successful issue of the contest, we were 
partly indebted to the aid of the French monarch ; 
our debt of gratitude to him we transferred to the na- 
tion he governed ; during his life this was a pure and 
virtuous sentiment, and the regret we felt for the cala- 
mities of his family was too feeble to destroy our 
attachment. The usurpers of his throne ungener- 
ously abused their power over us, they indirectly in- 
creased our prejudices by exciting our hatred against 
their rivals and enemies. Our passions were artfully 
fomented by comparing the revolutions in both coun- 
tries, by misapplying the same principles to an op- 



posite course of conduct, regardless of the essential 
difference, that our struggle was to retain the rights 
we had enjoyed, theirs, to remove the evils they en- 
dured; ours, was a blessing we inhaled with the breath 
of life, theirs, an unknown good of which they neither 
knew the kind nor the value. 

In an early period of the French revolution there 
was a party in this country who were wilfully seduc- 
ed to promote the designs of that government. Twen- 
ty years since the French republic passed a decree, 
under which in direct breach of their treaty, Ameri- 
can commerce suffered much vexation and injury. 
Our minister at Paris was repeatedly charged to re- 
monstrate against this gross violation of our rights, 
instead of which he declared to that government, that 
he had no instructions to complain of the decree or 
request a repeal of it, on the contrary, if they sup- 
posed it would produce them any solid benefit, the 
American government and his countrymen, would bear 
the departure with patience, and even with pleasure. 
This t'eclaration was disavowed by Washington, 
and the minister recalled, but it convinced the French 
cabinet, that he would not hazard it on his personal 
responsibility only, unless he was supported by a 
powerful faction at home, as he was a man high in 
office, and has since been gradually rising to the high- 
est stations. 

From this origin, we may date the rapid growth 
of that pernicious influence which, secretly operating, 
has promoted the designs of France, as much as if 
she had issued a formal decree requiring our concur- 
rence. Whether fear, hatred, love or admiration. 



8 

was the ruling principle, the rigour of her commands 
have only been equalled by the zeal with which they 
have been obeyed, there was an entire harmony be- 
tween the design and the execution, that in effect we 
have been treated, rather as a French vice-royalty, 
than as a free republic. During the various changes 
in their government, we have successively felt this 
influence, but never did it so much predominate over 
the opinions, prejudices and passions, as during the 
reign of the Corsican usurper. Secret service mo- 
ney, liberally circulated through all the grades of cor- 
ruption, funds were supplied by sequestration of pro- 
perty, and the sale of Spanish provinces. Now. 
the glory has departed, and this meteor shorn of his 
beams, we may with stedfast eye discern the shame- 
less arrogance by which, he seemed to direct every 
measure of our administration. The victim which 
he could not reach with the sword, he circumvented 
by intrigue, or poisoned by corruption. To what mo- 
tive but fear, can we ascribe the subserviency of our 
ministry? It was their prevalent opinion, that Great- 
Britain could resist but a few years, and must then 
yield (o the usurper. It has been confessed that Ame- 
rica was ensnared, that the knot was entwined round 
her neck, an infernal charm rendered it indissoluble to 
negotiation, and which the sword only could dissever. 
That master hand, as it marked the gigantic shadow 
of his own policy, with the same physiognotrace de- 
scribed in miniature, the features of our government. 
These are not unfounded assertions — they are 
attested by the conduct of the French government, 
and by the acknowledgments of our own. Witness his 



9 

imperious declaration, when we humbly urged the 
rights of neutral powers, that " he would permit no 
neutrals, that we should aid him to euforce his sys- 
tem to destroy the commerce of England." Witness 
his insult on our weak and unsteady policy — <■ that we 
submitted to pay duties to Great Britain, and that 
such men, who thus submitted, were more dependant 
than one of Iter provinces. Men, without honour, 
and without energy, who, having refused to fight for 
interest, would be compelled to fight for honour" — 
with such menaces, having vanquished opposition, he 
then declared " the American government had re- 
traced its steps, and had resolved to oppose the ene- 
my." But he did not confine his measures to words 
only — he sequestered our merchandise to the value of 
twenty millions, and tauntingly pretended it was for 
violating restrictions imposed by our own laws, which 
he officiously undertook to enforce. 

His subjugated provinces of Germany and Hol- 
land did not more quietly endure such outrages than 
the free government of the United States. To com- 
plete the climax of humility on the one side, and 
overbearing insolence on the other — as if Congress 
was of incompetent discretion, and he their guardian, 
he declared war for us against England ; and our 
subsequent declaration appeared to the impartial 
world, more like the servile recital of an imperial de- 
cree, than an original, independent act of a free gov- 
ernment. 

Do not believe these insults were received with 
unconscious stupidity. Full well did Mr. Madison 
know their extent and bearing: he had but lately dis- 



10 



missed a British minister for a constructive insult, 
which none but microscopic eyes could perceive, and 
nothing but his nervous sensibility could feel. Yet 
within a year before, his reluctant consent to termi- 
nate the controversy, was connected with so gross an 
affront to his Britannic majesty, that he was obliged 
to reject the instrument which would otherwise have 
been confirmed, and thus the fatal consequences of 
the rupture would have been avoided. 

To what more excusable cause than timidity, 
can be referred this fatal partiality ? With the one, 
he has constantly resisted pacific overtures, and mag- 
nified the shadow of an affront into hostile aggres- 
sion ; from the other, he has endured with the meek- 
ness of a saint, every species of indignity. This 
coquetish honour, like a sensitive plant, lias shrunk 
from the touch of a British fairy, yet has borne the 
gigantic grasp of a French lover, and not recoiled 
from the pressure. What motive but the fear of 
France, produced the rupture of Mr. Erskinc's agree- 
ment, or the concealment of the absolute repeal of 
the French decrees affecting our commerce? Had 
this fact been seasonably made known to Great Brit- 
ain, she would have withdrawn her orders in council, 
and thus, the chief cause which had been assigned 
for hostilities, would have been removed. But fear 
has not been the only passion which has been excit- 
ed, to produce these baneful measures, baser mo- 
tives, and more unprincipled instruments, have been 
employed to destroy our national peace. 

The history of the French cabinet which the 
national convention published to the world, develop- 



ii 

ed a mystery of intrigue and corruption, a system of 
domestic and foreign espionage, which for more than 
a century, had extended through Europe, and even to 
the United States, while British colonies. The same 
system was renewed by the usurper, with instruments 
as much more numerous and efficient, as were the re- 
sources of the empire than those of the monarchy. 
He organized a regular band of spies and informers, 
and distributed them through Europe and America ; 
with the pillage of one class of citizens he bribed 
and corrupted another. The honest merchant was 
robbed to enrich with the plunder some venal politi- 
cian. Thus with diabolical policy, he compelled the 
victim which he butchered to provide the instruments 
of sacrifice. If the present king should favour the 
world with a second volume of the history of that 
cabinet, it might supply the remaining fragments of 
those mutilated and half-suppressed documents which 
our President reluctantly yielded to Congress, under 
the injunction that they should not be copied for the 
inspection of the people. As he has declared that 
France wanted money and must have it, these arch- 
ives might disclose, how much she wanted — what sum 
she received— and how she expended it. — They might 
reveal the price that has bought our prostituted presses 
and our foreign editors, and beam a blaze of light on 
that hand, which has directed in darkness, the ma- 
chine of government. 

Should the pension list be published, how many 
democratic officers, besides those of Massachusetts, 
might exile themselves to Canada, that American 
Siberia for disgraced courtiers. And if ever the in- 



iiuence of the court should be too feeble to resist the 
call of national justice, plenary evidence may be 
procured to accuse certain great personages with 
breach of trust, and to 'Support an impeachment. 

Had the usurper continued on the throne, his 
nefarious designs on our liberties might eventually 
have been accomplished. His hirelings had from 
time to time hazarded a course of experiments, not 
one of which has so well succeeded that they dared 
to repeat it. The vigilance of freemen has frustrated 
their purpose, and the overthrow of their master des- 
troyed their power. Can it be doubted that such 
means have been employed to controul our national 
councils, to deceive the people and inflame them a- 
gaitist Great-Britain? Their emissaries have swarm- 
ed through the country ; except in New-England, 
they have infested every city in the Union. There 
was not a place of resort for health or pleasure, where 
our ears were not inflamed by slanderous whispers 
or stunned by republican gasconade. Not a measure 
could be adopted by the English, which they did not 
denounce — by the French, which they did not advo- 
cate and espouse ; not an outrage committed, which 
they did not palliate ; not a crime perpetrated, which 
they did not excuse. While France stiled herself a 
republic, the friends of peace were pronounced aris- 
tocrats ; when she became despotic, monarchists ; 
while, with all the inconsistency of supporting lawless 
tyranny, they assumed to themselves the modest 
name of republicans. 

The influence thus acquired, has been employed 
to prepare the country for a provincial government, 



13 

and familiarize it to the controul of a military 
chief. When we have complained of unconstituti- 
onal laws and violated rights, the minions of Na- 
poleon have threatened to enforce silence with the 
sword. After they had reconciled the people to en- 
dure the war, to enforce their measures, they dared to 
recommend that most horrible feature of an arbitrary 
government, a military proscription, and to establish 
martial law, under pretence of punishing as spies 
American citizens. To destroy commerce, they im- 
posed such severe restrictions, that if continued, would 
have transformed a maritime country to an inland 
desert. The legislature of Massachusetts has had 
the proud honour to compel them " to retrace their 
steps.' 7 The temperate, firm conduct of this state 
has effected the repeal of the law violating our con- 
stitutional rights. They knew that a legislature 
which had declared a law not obligatory, would never 
permit any of its citizens who should resist its autho- 
rity, to suffer its penalties. Had they persisted, a civil 
war must have ensued. They were step by step pur- 
suing the course of the French people ; if we had 
succeeded, we had to apprehend anarchy — if defeat- 
ed, despotism — when that Power, who directs the 
storm, suddenly averted it when ready to burst upon 
our heads, and saved us from destruction. The in- 
scrutable purposes, of which this scourge of nations 
was the instrument, having been completed, he sinks 
to his original insignificance. Y» iih the fall of the 
usurper, peace will be restored to the world — peace too 
must revisit America. Whatever our ministry may 
pretend, the ability to conduct the war, depends on 



14 

the disposition of the people, and they can endure it 
n o longer. Whether it will he honorable or disgrace- 
ful, we fear may depend less on our own, than the 
British government. We should be prepared for the 
worst. The dangerous secrets, with which France 
may furnish our enemy, may enable him to fix a price, 
which might ruin New-England, by compelling her 
to the abandonment of the fisheries, or might humble 
the pride of the South, by requiring the cession of 
Louisiana. These may apparently be the terms of 
purchase, when in reality but the bribe to secure 
secrecy. Like him who has tottered on the brink 
of a precipice, it is with terror we view the dangers 
we have escaped. But for the downfall of the tyrant, 
your property would have been seized to discharge 
exorbitant taxes, your children led to the conscription, 
yourselves to the scafibld. All these have been threa- 
tened — and did they ever threaten, and if able, fail to 
perform. The tyrant had already marked his vic- 
tims. He never forgave you the capture of the In- 
surgent and Berceau ; for this he would have annihi- 
lated your navy, as he has proscribed your commerce. 
The speeches of your patriots were recorded and 
their names entered on the list of proscription, his 
ruffian executioners menaced the pillage of your pro- 
perty and the murder of your persons ; fortunately, 
the massacre at Baltimore was a premature experi- 
ment before the banditti were completely organized 
and their schemes of conspiracy matured. 

But, glory to God ! the tyrant is fallen, and we 
are delivered. Who lament his fate ? who are there 
to follow the pall of departed greatness ? does it go 



15 

Unattended to the grave ? are there no mourners from 
his dissevered housbold ? Holland and Italy desert 
him ; the German family he had collected, return to 
I lie hereditary mansion ; there is not a sad counte- 
nance worn in Europe, except by the American em- 
bassy. With the tyrant must vanish his whole host 
of retainers, spies, informers, prostituted editors, fugi- 
tives from Tyburn and the gal lies. Alas, their voca- 
tion is gone ! hitherto they have turned with the revo- 
lution of the political wheel, and contrived always !«• 
be uppermost. Will they tender their services to the 
new king? that virtuous monarch would as soon re- 
lease convicts from prison, and introduce them into 
his cabinet. Will they return to Europe ? alas, they 
superstitiously believe that crossing the water would 
dissolve the charm which now secures them from 
Tyburn. Where will you find them next, if their 
friends at home desert them ? Arm yourself, incau- 
tious traveller ! you will meet them on the highway. 

With the tyrant has fled that veneration and 
confidence, which a generous, but deluded people had 
reposed in their political chief. The head which 
had been turned by the honours of French citizen- 
ship, ought never to have been the head of the 
American people. Left to the torture of remorse, per- 
haps there is not another being so miserable on this 
side the Isle of Elba. History will record, and 
posterity denote him — not, as he might have been con- 
sidered, as the successor of Washington — but the con- 
federate of Bonaparte ; — not as the cherished friend 
of the American hero — but the abject dependant of an 
Italian adventurer; — not like Washington, insulated 



1(5 

from foreign connections, and standing on the pedes- 
tal of his own greatness — but, ignominiously clinging 
to a fallen colossus, which has crushed him under 
its weight. They who shared the friendship must 
participate the enmities of the usurper — and he, 
was the enemy of human kind. Into what an abyss 
might he have plunged our country ! Almost ruined 
by evil, councils, whither can she turn for relief? 
If she remind the French monarch of the ties of 
ancient amity, "Will he not. reply — " These ties you 
have long since ungratefully cut asunder. No soon- 
er did you see the blood of your benefactor flow from 
the scaffold, than you clasped the reeking hand of 
his murderers. If not principal; you were accessary 
to rob me of my crown, ray subjects and my life, and 
to aid in the pillage and massacre of Europe." 

How the heart sickens, and shame tinges the 
fallen countenance, to feel, that our nation has added 
its weight, to depress the fortunes of this illustrious 
family. That we like savages, have adored through 
fear that destructive daemon, who ouly gave his 
friends the miserable privilege, to be the last he 
should devour. 

But for this fatal policy, we might this day have 
celebrated the festival of humanity — the universal 
jubilee of nations ; in humble adoration might have 
knelt with the assembled crowns of Europe, en- 
circling the altar of peace, and worshipping the God 
of heaven. Our gallant youth, trained in the school 
of honour, the nursery of manly principle, might have 
fought to rescue mankind from the oppressor, under 
the banners of the deliverer of Europe, of that men- 



17 

arch who last on the list of time, is first on the roll of 
heroes. 

Could we have hailed the restoration of that 
family, whose arm supported us in our unequal con- 
test with Britain ; could we have aided to conduct 
their king to the throne of his ancestors, and have re 
eeived his grateful acknowledgments that we had 
thus extinguished the original debt, which gratitude 
had written in our hearts ; on this day, the fraternity 
of nations might have united in one grand celebration 
of the Independance of the Eastern and "Western 
world. From myriads of voices, Europe and America 
would have resounded with grateful acclamations, 
while the opposite shores of the Atlantic re-echo to 
each other, the names of their heroic deliverers 
WELLINGTON and WASHINGTON. 

We should be aliens from the principles aud. 
feelings of Americans, if we did not exult in the de 
liverance of mankind. Though compelled to partici 
pate in an unjust war against England, we must 
acknowledge that but for her exertions we might 
long since have been slaves of the usurper. In our 
war with France what protected our commerce and 
restrained her armies from the invasion of our shores? 
The British navy ; what arrested the course of in- 
trigue which was secretly undermining our liberties ? 
but the success of the British and allied armies. We 
predicted the downfall of England at the moment 
she prepared to rescue us from ruin. She crushed 
that serpent coiling round the neck of his sleeping 
victim, who unconscious of danger, was dreaming of 
her deliverers destruction. 
3 



18 

Our adversaries accuse us of foreign partiality, 
we love no country like our own ; we are attached 
to the union, being all members of one body, of which 
Virginia assumes to be the head, but we know that 
New England is the heart ; her sons have no cer- 
tificates of French citizenship to divide their love. 
She has no patriots by adoption, those exotic weeds, 
which exterminated from their native soil, take root 
on any spot where they casually fall. Her sons trace 
their descent from ancestors, whose institutions they 
preserve and whose memory they venerate. She 
requires no mixture of the best nation on earth in her 
political composition, let the head, and the heart and 
the arm be purely American. 

Our sires achieved the Independence we now 
celebrate, in a just cause, like them we should feel 
but one sentiment ; they did not nicely calculate the 
chance of success, with God and their rights, our rude 
yeomanry withstood the disciplined veterans of Eng- 
land. They required no diplomatic!: skill to dis- 
cover their wrongs : they were taught them by the 
voice of nature, it was not persuasive., — it was imperi- 
ous, — not the cold step-by-step process of argument ; 
it was the electricity of instinct, penetrating in an 
instant the sultry sands of Georgia and the icy 
mountains of Maine. In a just cause, the feelings of 
ihe fathers would revive in the children. They ap- 
pealed to Heaven, and when like them, thou cans! 
thus appeal, beloved New England ! we will agaiu 
confront thine adversary on the ocean or on the field 
He dares not despise thee, — death at Bunker's hill, 
si ripped oft' the ridicule he had thrown on thy yan 



19 

free soldier^, imd the hero of the lake, the con- 
tempt he had cast on thy fresh icater sailors. 

It is rude mockery to declare to our merchants 
and seamen that the real ohject of the war was to pro- 
tect their rights, when but a few years since our politi- 
cal chief recommended them " to abandon the ocean 
altogether, and to cultivate the soil." Strange as it 
is, the passions of those who suffer, are far less exci- 
ted, than of those who sympathize ; our sailors rights 
are vindicated in the woods, and the champions of our 
merchants, are the hunters of Kentucky ; they invite 
our gallant seamen who in the storm of war have 
shed a stream of glory on the wave — to share with 
them the darkness which overspreads the field. 
They promise our enterprizing merchants a fertile 
soil and a temperate region ; ease unbought by ex- 
ertion, and abundance without industry. But what 
would they relinquish in exchange, for this sensual 
paradise. The friends of their youth, the habits and 
manners iu which they had been educated, and 
their ancient institutions of religion and literature. 

Spirits of our ancestors ! until we are unworthy 
of your virtues, we will preserve our civil and sacred 
rights of inheritance, and in this temple where you 
have worshipped will renewedly resolve, that where 
you died, we will die, and there will we be buried ; 
your people shall be our people, and your God our 
God. For our shield of defence against foreign and 
domestic foes, is the 
"SANCTUARY OF OUR GOD AND THE 

SEPULCHRE OF OUR FATHERS.- 7 






H 33 89 ' 1 1 







f : A- V* rife- v 



^ 



^vw*V ^ . . '^ "*MV A *v 



"W° * 







*o>* 



»°^ 



°v0 V 














ear." ^V 





'7V«* ,0" 












V 1 * \2h55p * V ^ ° ^^^V * < 



V^ o 






HECKMAN liJ 
BINDERY INC. |§| 

^^APR 89 

N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 









